Guided by the intention “to engineer footwear that provides a perfect blend of form, function and value”, the brand’s co-founders Byron and Dexter Peart are starting the new line with an offering of two styles for Spring/Summer 2015: the Montoro (a classic derby updated with a bias cut and gold and silver finishes) and the Lennon (an oxford-style sneaker with a contemporary shape). New models, including sandals, are expected to become available later in the year.

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If Lisbon has had a reasonably successful fashion week that has been running for decades owing to sponsorship agreements, Portugal Fashion uses Portuguese and European Union private and public funds to promote not only some of the designers that regularly show in the Portuguese capital but also, and rather importantly, to allow many budding labels to exhibit their collections in Lisbon, Porto, and internationally in São Paulo, London and Paris. “Portugal Fashion was originally based exclusively in Porto; however, over the past few seasons, we felt that it was important for visitors to the event to be able to see what Lisbon offered too; hence starting there on the first day before heading to Porto” a spokesperson for ANJE explained.
The first day saw Storytailors, João Melo Costa and Alves/Gonçalves showing their collections in the Portuguese capital. Of the three fashion labels, it was the young Melo Costa (whose pieces had been shown during London Fashion Week just a few weeks before) who stood out, with a well-edited collection featuring inquisitively youthful silhouettes and comprising garments made from noble fabrics and adorned with seductive embellishments.

On the second day of Portugal Fashion, and after a three-hour bus journey to Porto (Portugal’s second biggest city after Lisbon), over 100 journalists, buyers and agents were able to witness the collections by Julio Turcato, Luis Buchinho, Daniela Barros, Hugo Costa, and Anabela Baldaque in the environs of Porto’s Customs House, the majestic building designed by French architect Jean Colson and inaugurated in 1869. If Baldaque charmed for drawing inspiration from Swinging London and late 1960s womenswear shapes and patterns, Hugo Costa’s menswear collection (presented under the moniker ‘Bushido’ as an homage to Japanese culture) shone for its accomplished urban and cosmopolitan sartorial tropes, with strong examples of footwear and backpacks to match.
On 28 March, Susana Bettencourt, Estelita Mendonça, Carla Pontes, Katty Xiomara, Diogo Miranda, Mafalda Fonseca, Teresa Martins, Carlos Couto, and Fátima Lopes had the chance to show their designs in the busiest day of the showcase. Perhaps the most international of this cohort, Lopes unveiled a collection that relied on formal structures and dialectic approaches to silhouettes that balanced geometries and lines throughout a crafted range of pieces. On the opposite scale, Miranda opted for a classically elegant collection redolent of Christian Dior’s New look and suggesting the influence of some of Yves Saint Laurent’s early designs. In menswear, João Pedro Estelita Mendonça stood out for his innovative fabrics and deconstructed menswear lines. The last day of Portugal Fashion Autumn/Winter 2014 focussed on presenting commercial ranges of ready-to-wear, accessories and footwear, areas where Portugal has been revealing some solid accomplished successes over the last two or three years by relying on an investment in collaborations with young designers. Miguel Vieira, whose creations have been recognised in Portugal and abroad particularly over the last decade, closed the event with a series of looks anchored by tubular forms made possible by accentuating waists, slumping shoulders and balancing oversized and fitted garments.

However, the collection that stood out for all the right reasons was the one that Teresa Martins conceived for her label TM Collection. Through an intelligent and critical questioning of ethnicity and Portuguese folklore, Martins engendered a range of garments that, when examined beyond the styling and presentation format, revealed elegant details such as painstakingly pleated skirts and blouses, as well as embroidered coats and bags. Voluminous garments and scarves contrasted with fitted pants, and noble gold jewellery pieces were juxtaposed with heavy urban footwear. Ultimately, this was a collection that summed up the unique aesthetic mark that young Portuguese designers have been making on the international fashion arena; one that, despite its genteel level of influence, undoubtedly deserves a closer look.

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If the collection incorporates conceptual and physical elements from faraway countries such as rare skins, geological gems, the animal geoglyph motifs from the Nazca Lines, and traditional Peruvian needle-punched horizontal stripes, the results couldn’t be more sophisticated: silhouettes are slim and clean silhouettes, garments are crafted from noble materials, and an array of stylish accessories complements the looks.
Luxurious fabrics are ubiquitous throughout the collection and include mohair and huarizo (an alpaca-llama crossbreed) in suiting; double-faced vicuña in robes; and cashmere (sometimes blended with silk) in evening double-breasted overcoats, reversible coats, blousons and gloves, or in hand-knitted strips that resemble fur. In addition, dégradé silk is used for evening suits worn over micro-checked and striped shirts, while lounge pants, T-shirts and sweatshirts feature artisan crochet stitch detailing; and a range of scarves made from silk twill incorporate subtle patterns such as chevrons, stripes, and herringbone.

As has become expected of Louis Vuitton, opulent and textured furs and leathers abound: shearling panels are used in a reversible zip-up sweater, chinchilla-lined silk is detailed with heat-sealed zippers and seams, and a windbreaker made from python skin is finished with a calf-leather hood. Equally, accessories and footwear incorporate innovatively treated and patterned skins: a Derby city shoe comes in silver-mirrored calfskin, grained nubuck or crocodile; a city ankle boot-hybrid uses glazed calf with a padded nappa ankle; and rubberized leather is used for the trimming of bags, a predominant accessory offered in a comprehensive range that includes holdalls, totes, messengers, trolley bags, duffles, folios and hybrid backpacks.

And confirming the desirable social status that Louis Vuitton commands, the collection comprises more economical objects that stress the brand’s identity in the form of accessories and jewellery pieces: every look in the collection comes with sunglasses with coloured and mirrored lenses; whereas necklaces, rings, and lapel pins inspired by South-American geology incorporate gems and stones such as crystal, quartz, amethyst, ionite, agate and jasper.

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Founded in 1959 in the English county of Lancashire, Hotter Shoes started out as makers of slippers before adding new shoe lines in the early 1990s with a focus on style with built-in comfort. Over five decades, the family business has grown to become the biggest manufacturer of footwear in the UK, having made 1.3 million pairs of shoes in the last year alone that could be purchased in more than 200 British retailers, in all of 54 Hotter stores and online on the brand’s website.

I started my examination of Hotter Shoes by looking into its Autumn/Winter 2013 menswear range, which was available in four styles: Classic, Leisure, Sport and Active. Although many models showed a preference for comfort over innovative design, I found some smart options in the Classic range and opted for one of Hotter’s newest models, the Senator brogues in dark brown leather.

When I first tried my pair of Hotter shoes, I was amazed at how light and warm they were. In addition, because the shoes included soft padding and cushioned foot-beds on the inside and light bending rubber soles, they felt very comfortable. A few weeks later, and after having worn the shoes a number of times in all sorts of weather, I was pleased that the leather hadn’t broken in the wrong places and that the colour hadn’t faded.

All in all, my examination of Hotter Shoes confirmed why this British footwear brand managed to sustain its reputation for so long. If I could make a suggestion, it would be that a small investment in new design would undoubtedly attract more style savvy and younger consumers. Nevertheless, Hotter shoes are worthy of commendation for all men looking for footwear options that are simultaneously comfortable and stylish.

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The store is divided into three main areas, each separated by portals finished in black lacquer and all including ash wood furniture finished with different colours. Men’s and women’s bags, jewellery, eyewear and fragrances are located by the ground-floor entrance in an area with silver walls and a green Persian onyx floor; a second room with gold walls and Renoir quartzite flooring leads towards the lift and staircase; and footwear and jewellery are displayed in the level above in a room with glossy blue fabric walls and South African quartzite floors.

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Drawing inspiration from the work of American painter Mark Rothko and his role in the Colorfield Painting art movement, BWGH explored how the gradation of shades of blue could be effectively applied to sports materials such as suede, mesh and bouclé knit. Throughout the creative process, Obadia and Hassan paid close attention to the adroit balance of tones in the smallest of details as evident in the careful choice of blues for the mottled laces. The collection, which was launched in stores worldwide this month, comes as a pack of accessories that includes a backpack and a limited-edition skate deck.

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Under the curatorial guidance of Alistair O’Neill (from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design) and Shonagh Marshall (from Somerset House Trust), ‘Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore!’ takes visitors on a chronological journey through key moments in Isabella’s simultaneously exhilarating and melancholic life, starting with a room displaying photographs taken when she was a child and teenager, family photo albums and newspaper clippings that throw some light on Isabella’s eccentric mind and passionate support for the arts.

Born Isabella Delves Broughton on 19 November 1958, Isabella grew up observing the lifestyle that she could have had but was denied to her at birth and seemed to escape her throughout her life. In spite of being born into an aristocratic family with ancestral roots that can be traced to the thirteenth century, Isabella was brought up not in the family’s Doddington Hall but in a small house on the borders of the estate and in relatively modest conditions as the family land was sold to pay the gambling debts incurred by her grandfather, the Baronet Henry John (Jock) Delves Broughton (who was famously accused for the murder of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, in 1941). Living with the awareness of her noble lineage but with no money, when Isabella was forced to work in order to make a living, she opted for a career in fashion and art.

In 1980, a year after moving to New York City to study Ancient Chinese Art at Columbia University, she moved to Texas and worked for the fashion label Guy Laroche. In 1981, and back in New York, she was hired as assistant to the editor-in-chief of US Vogue, Anna Wintour. After returning to London in 1986, she got a job at Tatler, where she was tasked with keeping abreast of emerging sartorial talent, a role that she embraced with gusto both professionally and personally for the rest of her life. She went on to work at British Vogue for a while and in 1997 she became Fashion Director of The Sunday Times Style after which she returned to Tatler as Fashion Director.

Renowned for wearing haute couture to work and for going over budget in some of the most expensive photographic editorials in the history of fashion magazines, Isabella amassed a large number of extraordinary fashion items over 30 years, many of which are now part of the Isabella Blow Foundation archives, and on loan to the exhibition. In addition to displaying personal items such as letters, notebooks, pens, business cards and even old lipsticks, the main rooms of Somerset House’s Embankment Galleries feature numerous garments and accessories by Manolo Blahnik, Hussein Chalayan, Comme des Garçons, Terry de Havilland, Dior, Escada, Fendi, John Galliano, Givenchy, Erik Halley, Yoshimi Hishinuma, Julien Macdonald, Marni, Alexander McQueen, Benoit Méléard, Alan Mikli, Deborah Milner, Cesare Paciotti, Prada, Antony Price, Sergio Rossi, Jeremy Scott, Teerabul Songvich, Jun Takahashi, Philip Treacy, Undercover, Viktor and Rolf, Louis Vuitton, Tristan Weber, and Wunderkind.
During the early 1990s, Isabella tried to revive her illusive aristocratic lifestyle at Hilles House, the Gloucestershire family home that belonged to Detmar Hamilton Blow (the art dealer who became her second husband in 1989 and whom she separated in 2004). A room of the exhibition evokes this period by re-enacting the Circular Saloon at Hilles, allowing visitors to the exhibition to meander between 11 mannequins wearing dramatic outfits.

Isabella was also known for discovering models Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant, and for her collaborations with photographers such as Steven Meisel, David LaChapelle and Sean Ellis. To illustrate this, a section of the exhibition features large-scale reproductions of the photographs taken for ‘Anglo Saxon Attitudes’, one of Isabella’s most innovative and provocative editorials. Shot by Steven Meisel and published in the December 1993 issue of British Vogue, the photographs feature Stella Tennant, Honor Fraser, Plum Sykes, Bella Freud and Lady Louise Campbell on their first ever magazine appearance.
The final section in the exhibition displays six looks from ‘La Dame Bleue’, the Spring/Summer 2008 Alexander McQueen collection that McQueen and Philip Treacy designed and dedicated to Isabella after her suicide on 7 May 2007. Showcased in a spectacular show on 6 October 2007, the collection remains, to this day, a beautiful love letter to Isabella Blow and a most poignant and adroit way to conclude an exhibition that is a true celebration of British eccentricity and sartorial ingenuity.

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Focussing  on thorough production methods (including a 183-step process that requires 90 sets of hands working each pair of shoes over 4 hours), Xcalibur has developed updated versions of conventional men’s footwear staples such as lace-ups, brogues, monk shoes, boots, loafers, driving shoes and sneakers. However, what caught my attention while examining the brand’s collections was the range of details that Freeman has incorporated into his shoes (such as laces in contrasting colours and art work by Emmeric Konrad printed on the leather soles), and the inventive Hybrids range that fuses traditional formal shapes with design details from sports shoes in the ‘Hybrid Air’ and the ‘Junior Booty’ models. Furthermore, its approach to branding and intention to branch into other areas of men’s fashion and lifestyle make Xcalibur stand out in the contemporary men’s footwear market.

Like the name of the brand itself, Xcalibur models are named after characters and legends from ancient English literature and culture (including Guinevere, Sir Launcelot, Morgan Le Fay, Vice Chair, Serpent and Lady of the Lake) perhaps with the intention to conjure an image of tradition and old-worldly historical significance. In addition to its collections of shoes, Xcalibur also produces T-shirts, hoodies and hats, and embraces social causes by supporting start-up entrepreneurship. But the factors that make Xcalibur Shoes different in the market may also be challenges to its success. As the contemporary design of the shoes speak for themselves, the emphasis on medieval names seems unnecessary and, in some ways, diverts the attention from the products. Additionally, by offering a small line of branded garments and accessories, the brand can be perceived as being too ambitiously stretched in different directions in its early stages.

All in all, for the investment in good design and skillful manufacturing that underpin production processes, Xcalibur Shoes is a men’s footwear brand that deserves to thrive. I, for one, am certainly keeping an eye on its original designs and look forward to many successful ranges of innovative styles.

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Containing a cafe, news counter, an art gallery and relaxation areas in addition to selling design objects, lines of ready-to-wear, accessories and footwear, KM20 defines itself as a store that is “confident and knowledgeable in its selection [of] the most interesting fads”. This is achieved not only by combining products from established and emerging designers, but also by developing collaborative projects and limited-edition collections. KM20’s eclectic and passionate approach to selecting products allied to a friendly service and intimate decor makes it one of the most interesting shops I have ever visited anywhere in the world and one that I do not hesitate to recommend to anyone passing through Moscow. 

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